Willem Kes (1856-1934), Symphony in E major

[Ilja]

One of the other works that I discovered due to Alan's post about Coenen on "Mdmusics"'s YouTube channel was a symphony by Willem Kes (1856-1934), the first conductor of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1888. You can find it here.

Kes was a very important figure in the history of classical music. Not only because his role in founding and "drilling" the Concertgebouw Orchestra into a first-rate ensemble, but also in two ways relevant to this forum. The orchestra wasn't founded for the purposes of musical innovatiion, but primarily to "perform music by the great masters" as perfectly as possible. That is not to say that the CGO never played new works - they did, and plenty of them at least up to the Second World War - but it wasn't its reason for being. That was a choice that would have lasting consequences for the petrification of the repertoire. A second aspect is that Kes actively tried to educate the concert-going audience in Amsterdam. Much of how we behave in concerts is due to what Kes thought was acceptable: no talking during concerts, closed doors at the beginning of the concert, applause only at the end of the completed work, to name three. In how far he was innovative in this respect of whether he just followed international trends, I cannot tell.

I found the symphony rather interesting; unfortunately, the pre-Noteperformer synthesizers make some perseverence necessary when listening. The YT channel claims that "his only symphony can easily be called "Brahms' 5th", but to be honest it doesn't come across to me as all that Brahmsian. From what I can tell it's quite early; he did write more works, although mainly chamber music.

Edit: the MS is apparently in the Willem Kes archive at the NMI; correspondence with them reveals that the work was composed in 1896 and the movements titles are: 1. Allegro / 2. Allegro / 3. Andante sostenuto / 4. Finale. Allegro. Most tantalizingly, it's listed as "No. 1" which suggests the existence of others.

[Mark Thomas]

It's an attractive and convincing piece, certainly, even if tagging it as "Brahmsian" does it no service. Even assuming it was an early work and was composed by Kes in his 20s, it wouldn't have been written until the late 1870s/early 1880s and so would hardly have been regarded as ground-breaking by then, but it's a solid piece of work, very competently put together. As you say, the heritage digital realisation makes for a tiring listen, but I'd very happily sit through a live performance of the Kes' Symphony.

[Alan Howe]

Yes, a nice, sub-Brahmsian piece which I'm glad to have the opportunity to hear. It'd be great to have it in a better computer realisation - any offers, anyone?